I didn't say it was out of line, just acerbic.

"shitty" "can't believe" "pathetic"

Strong words. HN will generally downvote strong displays of negative emotions, especially if it's something purely subjective.

It was also slightly accusatory, saying other HN users were "making excuses" for this behavior. There's some ambiguity as to whether you meant the behavior itself was pathetic or the people "making excuses" were pathetic. I think you meant the latter.

Maybe this is an easier way to understand it: imagine you're in a room filled with people talking about this issue, and you stood up and said what you said out loud. How do you expect people to react? Positively?

I can't believe I'm explaining this in such detail. Haha.